By Rafiq Vayani / Kamran Hashim
DUBAI: International Memon Organization (IMO) organized a Business Conference last week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates to enhance business and trading networking within the community. During the business conference board members briefed about the vision of the organization.
Abdulla Gadawal, Founder International Memon Organization said; “we Memons organize World Cup for Memons, we also organize large scale exhibitions for our community and we arrange International Memon to Memon Business Conferences, all these activities are aimed promoting memons more and more and also at getting to know each other more”.
Mr. Saleem Karim, President, IMO said; “currently we have more than 600000 members from all over the world. Majority of our members are from India, Pakistan and from Dubai / middle-east”.
After the briefing session and speeches, IMO presented personality of year award to Mr. Salman Iqbal President / CEO of Ary Group, which is by far the largest media group in Pakistan. Mrs. Razia Rukkun-ud-din accepted the award on behalf of Mr. Salman Iqbal. Other awards and certificates were also distributed among the prominent personalities of the community.
Mr. Asif Majeed Panawala Vice President IMO Pakistan also spoke on the occasion and said; “during last year one of our big achievement was a bachat bazaar where around 8000 member of memon community purchased high quality products at a flat discount of 30%. This was a four day affair. First day of this bachat bazzar was celebrated as ‘memon day’, and for remaining three days this bachat bazaar turned out to be a big success”.
Replying to on question on other activities on IMO in Pakistan during last year Asif Majeed Panawala said; “among other activities, during this Eid-ul-Adha, we distributed of meat from sacrificial animals to more than 1000 families of our memon community”.
On future plans he said; “some of our ongoing programs are business to business, we want to train upcoming youth of our community, who have just passed out from their school/colleges and aren’t updated to latest trends in the market. A lot is happening in IT sector, banking sector is also developing very fast, we aim to train them latest trends that are coming in the market. We have planned a career counseling sessions for upcoming youth of our community”.
Mr. Farhan Pardesi President IMO Young Global said; “my vision is to create 10000 job for our community, for this purpose we attend various job fairs and gather CV’s of applicants. Till now we have received around 5500 CV’s. We have established an office by the name of ‘young memon’ here in Karachi, where every week 250 applicants come. We do the screening process and then interview after which we work on their job placement. Till now we have succeeded in placing 350 applicants at various jobs. Apart from this we also have other activities for our youth like sports, health-awareness seminars. Our aim is to concentrate on age group of 18 ~ 40 years, to promote them as much as possible and bring positivity in their lives as much as possible, because they are our future. I am pretty sure that we will succeed in creating 10000 job for our community”.
On social welfare activities of youth Mr. Ahmed Munaf Lodhikawala, Chief Patron IMO Young Memon said; “we have categorized our youth into three categories, age 18 ~ 25 years is an age which needs mentoring and motivating the most, for age group of 25 ~ 35 years, who are somewhat established to some extent need better opportunities where we help them, and finally 35 ~ 40 years age group are well mature enough and we try to induce them into social welfare of the society”.
Tayab Moosani, Secretary General of International Memon Organization (IMO) also had to say that; “all the vice presidents of our chapters from all around the world spoke on this auspicious occasion”.
IMO Ladies wing is also very active now with participation from all the chapters and is playing an important role in development of women and on issues faced by women.
